3 Questions for a Real F-35 Test Pilot

The tragic death of test pilot David Cooley in a F-22 Raptor crash last week highlighted a little known set of pilots who fly for defense contractors in support of military sales. Cooley was a 49-year old USAF veteran with 21 years of service who joined Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of the Raptor, in 2003. Last year, PM interviewed Jon Beasley, a Lockheed test pilot involved in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, for insights on what the military test pilot job is really like.

Test pilot Jon Beesley has ridden in history's cockpit. Having flown in the development phase of every operational U.S. stealth aircraft—the F-117 Nighthawk, F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning II—he has witnessed the evolution of modern aviation from a position envied by historians, warplane buffs and fellow pilots. All his skills and experience are now at work getting three variants of the F-35 (or Joint Strike Fighter) into the air for Lockheed Martin and its global customers. "This is the place where PowerPoint and physics meet," he says of the first test F-35, called AA-1. "This is where it becomes real."

How has the role of test pilot changed?

One of the things I think is most different is that we know a lot more, and so there's not so much, "Gee, I wonder what will happen when we get there," like it was, say, in the early 1950s. Back in those days, you didn't design unstable airplanes. All the planes we design now, left to their own devices [without computer assistance], are unstable. The problem is that they will fly very well right up to the instant they don't fly. In the old days if an airplane started to lose control power, for example, it would be a more gradual degradation. Today the airplane goes right up to the point where it's near the edge, then there is a steep drop-off and it won't fly at all.

You know, the impression of the job is: Formula One race-car driver, test pilot, NASCAR driver, all about the same. Quite honestly, if that's what it was, I would have stopped doing this a long time ago. I spend a great deal of time in meetings, working with the engineers on every aspect of how the landing gear works, how the flight control works, how the airplane flies, how the displays work, how the helmet works, writing the flight manual—all that stuff.

You've flown for every U.S. stealth aircraft program. Does the F-35 feel different?

Whenever there has been a major conflict, the F-117 was there to kick down the door. We only built 50 of them. Now you take that same capability and expand it into the Joint Strike Fighter and instead of giving the commander 50 of those, we're going to give him 500 or 1500 to use, and you say, "This is going to make a difference. This is going to change the way warfare is done." If I get emotional about anything, it's that.

Career Timeline

* F-4: Started his career in the Phantom, a twin-engine fighter-bomber.

* F-117: Flew as the seventh Air Force test pilot in the first stealth warplane, the Nighthawk.

* F-16: Developed night attack systems for the Fighting Falcon. He still flies them to stay proficient.

* F-22: Flew the Raptor's experimental predecessor and flew the final product for Lockheed.

* F-35: Chief test pilot for the three variants of the JSF program, including a vertical landing aircraft.